For some time now we have been working on producing the most accurate Boba Fett flight suits and vests possible, to this end we have been test dying fabrics, prototyping and seeking advice from Fett aficionados. The results of all this handwork can be seen in the pictures here.

We have produced two versions of both the flight suit and vest, the Empire Strikes Back version suit and vest and the Return of the Jedi version suit and vest.

The basis of the Boba Fett suit is the same in both versions, the zip up front, double layer sleeves, pocketed trousers, waist seam, ankle straps, open cuffs and quilted collar. The details that may be less obvious are as follows.

The collar is made from the same fabric as the vest, it is horizontally quilted with an excess of material to achieve the fullness of the screen worn collar, this quilting is visible on the outer but is not present on the inside. The front opening of the collar is cut at an angle with rounded corners and it fastens with white velcro and two sets of hook and bars.

The main body of the suit fastens with a heavy duty white zip which is hidden by the placket. There is a waist seam, that has been top stitched down, the seam runs around the circumference of the waist and does not have any elastic added. There is also a vertical seam at the centre back.

The under sleeve is a full length sleeve that has three slightly rolled top stitched seams. The cuffs (like the originals) remain open with no fastening, the openings are hemmed and the cuff features four stitched lines that start and finish at the opening hem line.

The over sleeve again has the three slightly rolled top stitched seams and the four stitched lines at the edge but this time the sleeve is a half sleeve finishing at the elbow. This sleeve is patterned so that once attached the bottom sits level not at an angle. In the rear of this upper sleeve we have included the hole for the gauntlet pipe.

Moving down the legs there are the thigh pockets, these are constructed first and then attached to the suit. Where the top of the flaps are sewn to the suit you will notice that the ESB version has only one row of stitching whilst the ROTJ version has two. The right pocket of both versions features a ‘secret pocket’ this is a slim pocket on the outer side wall, other than this ‘secret pocket’ the left and right pockets are mirror images of each other and fasten with velcro. The ESB suit has it’s pockets padded with blue foam to hold there shape, whereas the ROTJ pockets are left empty.

Further down the legs are the shin tool pockets, as with every other part of the suit, time and research has gone into making sure these are as accurate as possible using many reference points and found part tool props.

Finishing with the ankles the ESB suit has a single stitch line around the ankle with the tightening straps attached at the inside whereas the ROTJ suit has five stitch lines and the tightening straps attached to the outside.

Now onto the vests, again the basis of the vests is basically the same. We made quite a few prototypes for the vests before getting the shape and angles correct, what looks like a really simple item to make was actually quite tricky to get right.

The main body of the vest is constructed with a padded core and has a velcro opening at the centre back, the ESB vest fastens right over left, the ROTJ vest fastens left over right. The vests differ again at the side seams with the ESB being a top stitched seam whilst the ROTJ has hand sewn seam with a rounded lower corner.

The sleeves are again much trickier than they first appear, the quilted lines are only visible on the sleeve outer and end about an inch into the sleeve inner and the sleeves are shaped at their outer edge. The attached edge is bound before sewing it to the main body.

The original vest features letterbox openings for the jet pack harness on the rear and one on the front for the digital display, these are optional extras (we have only added them to our own ESB vest to illustrate this) as people use various harnesses and armour, ours were positioned to fit the RS propmasters jet pack harness.

Moving onto the drop pocket that hang from the belt, these are patterned in the same way as the thigh pockets but with the added back panel which extends up to the belt where it is attached by velcro (white for ESB and brown for ROTJ), these pockets do not have the ‘secret pocket’. The ESB pockets are blue and again have the blue foam inserts whereas the ROTJ are beige and are unfilled.

The ROTJ costume also has the ankle spats which are made from the same beige fabric as the drop pockets, these wrap around the ankle and fasten at the rear with velcro.

The flight suits are both made from a heavy duty work wear cotton, whilst developing the correct colours for the suits we came to the conclusion that the ROTJ suit widely seen at exhibitions has faded greatly over the years and when used would have been a slightly stronger blue, not as blue as the ESB suit but still bluer than it is now. With this in mind we had two batches of fabric dyed for the ROTJ suits, one ‘as new’ colour and one ‘exhibition’ colour so that we could offer a choice, we have yet to photograph the more faded ‘exhibition’ version.

We hope you like the suits, feed back is always welcome. We intend to carry on and develop the remaining soft parts for the costumes, stay tuned.

Big thanks must go to RS Propmasters for their help and of course to Keegan who has been our dedicated and very patient guide into the Fett world.

Continuing are development of the Boba character we have been working on the gloves. We have managed to recipe dye cotton gloves without them shrinking, gently weathered them before hand appliqueing the the fingers, thumbs and hand backs with quilted pieces. A very time consuming process. The cuff is then added by machine and hand using jersey needles so not to ladder the glove.